Normally when we make a VR wish list we know not to hold our breath for too long, but Doom is a bit different. As you’ll probably know, we already got a fairly decent stab at bringing the iconic shooter series to headsets with 2017’s Doom VFR, which remixed elements of 2016 reboot’s campaign.
With that in mind, you’ll forgive us if we let ourselves daydream about Doom Eternal in VR a bit.
The meaty introduction to id Software’s latest game at Quakecon this weekend was more than enough to get us excited for the standard version. But with id now having stretched its VR legs, we’re hoping that there’s something even bigger and better coming down the line for Doom Eternal and VR. These five things from the on-stage debut seem like a perfect fit for VR, too.
The Wrist-Mounted Blade
Within the first few seconds of the gameplay we get to see a new wrist-mounted blade. The moment I saw this I thought about how cool it would be to use in VR. It could be like Wolverine in Marvel Powers United VR just with much, much more blood.
In the footage, the blade is really only used during gory kills, but we’d love to have free reign over it in a VR spin-off. Melee combat in Doom is usually confined to kill animations, so introducing it as a means of normal attack could be really interesting.
The Meat Hook
One of the loudest of the many cheers that can be heard from the audience throughout the demo also comes near the start with the use of this new feature. Doom’s legendary Super Shotgun now comes with a sort of hookshot named the Meat Hook that lashes out, impales an enemy and then pulls you towards it. It looks like a great way to get around in the game, but it reminded me of something else.
One of the main ways to move in Doom VFR was to dash-teleport into enemies, causing them to explode in a shower of blood. We ended up preferring smooth locomotion to this movement method, but this gory hookshot looks like the perfect replacement for a VR follow-up, no?
The Guns
Well, this one’s kind of a no-brainer isn’t it? Doom Eternal looks like it’s suitably filled with new instruments of destruction that we’d love to wield in VR. The Ballista, for example, fires lasers that evaporate demons in seconds.
Doom VFR had some of the most interesting guns we’ve yet used in a VR game and we’re sort of hoping that maybe one or two of these new guns are being designed with PSVR’s Aim controller in mind. It’s a long shot, but we’ll hold out hope.
The Environments
We were going to talk about the enemies but, frankly, it’s the environments that seem like a bigger deal in Doom Eternal. The original game zig-zagged you between Hell and Mars, but in the gameplay demo this weekend we saw Earth, Phobos and a mysterious tease of an all-new area.
The scale of these environments is really something to behold. Crumbling cities house fleshy demon caves in which monsters fester, while a vista overlooking a battle on a space station is one of the most impressive things we’ve seen in this console generation. We’d love to jump into these worlds in VR.
The Laser Sword
Uh, yeah. Laser sword in VR. Duh?
